Numbers

Oracle showed some very good numbers in its latest earnings announcement. As it begins its second year of aggressive cloud promotion, the company overall is showing significant year-over-year improvements, thanks to its turn to cloud infrastructure, applications and platforms. Yet when read right, the numbers announce the end of the beginning of the end as much as they announce the end of the beginning. Oracle is the last major software vendor to adopt the cloud as its primary medium, and there’s no doubt about its direction.

Oracle will announce its Q1 revenue and profit numbers after market close on Wednesday. There’s more than a little excitement about what might be revealed, specifically if the company can continue its rise, thanks to its cloud products. The anticipated answer is yes, for a number of reasons, but there’s also potential for a surprise. First the surprise. The company so far has been posting great numbers for its cloud products, including SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, but it has been careful to note that the improvement was coming from net new business.

Apple will soon announce its numbers for the December quarter, and all eyes will be on its new flagship, the iPhone 7. Analysts expect Apple to announce 78 million iPhone sales for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2017, a 4 percent increase from last year.

Despite the numbers that show how lucrative retention is in an increasingly subscription-driven economy, the emphasis has been on new customer acquisition. That is still true, according to a recent study. Forty-two percent of the firms surveyed said they were increasing their budgets for customer acquisition, while only 33 percent said the budget for retention would increase. New customers always earn sales kudos, but customers kept tend to be taken for granted.

Although Apple has yet to release official Apple Watch sales numbers beyond being “thrilled” about its launch, research firm Slice Intelligence says the company is raking in big profits from Apple-made band accessories, as can be expected.

A new identity, a life-saving kidney, credit card numbers or even the murder of a troublesome business partner are all a few clicks away on the so-called “darkweb,” the seedy underbelly of the Internet that search engines don’t plumb and most people never surf.

Initial Apple Watch numbers are trickling in and among the first to report was research firm Slice Intelligence, which estimates nearly one million customers in the U.S. preordered the device on Friday.

Millions of Net surfers use obvious passwords to log on to websites, but their numbers appear to be declining. SplashData on Tuesday published its annual list of the top 25 most common — thus worst — passwords leaked online. No. 1 was “123456,” followed by “password” and “12345.” Both “123456” and “password” claimed the top spots in 2013, too, but “12345” was in the No. 17 spot last year. In addition to consecutive numbers, lazy password creators used obvious letter combinations. “Qwerty” was No. 5 on the list. Superheroes also ranked.